And the lesson is? You either go in there and bomb the living funk out of your enemies and/or you go in there as a colonial power which means for several decades minimum and/or until the place is on track. Which it aint right now*, colonialism is a long gameAnyway, I don't think China would be any worse an influence than any of the native frkkwitz Afghanistan seems to breed, so go China.

China's only there for the minerals. They don't have any shiats to give about creating a democratic government.That makes things much easier. They can just pay protection money and/or hire the warlords and Islamists directly.

As long as it's profitable and stable, what do they care about Afghan girls going to school or any of the rest?And their paying the tribes is probably the only remaining way to bring about the 'truce' where the government and the tribes leave each other alone and run their own lands their own way.

/ which is, ya know, fundamentalist islam for the tribes and sweet, sweet, crony-corporatism for the rest

"The Chinese are ambiguous. They don't want the Taliban to return to power and are concerned about a vacuum after 2014 that the Taliban could fill, but they also don't like having U.S. troops in their neighborhood," he says.

They can put up or shut up. You want to be a superpower? Act like one.

China has been interested in Afghan. for awhile, particularly when all those metal reserves were found. I still wouldn't read too much into it. 1.) Afghanistan is a long way off from being a cohesive state that China can deal with. 2.) China does not a have a great relationship with it's own Muslim/Turkic peoples. That may make for difficult bedfellows with the Taliban.

Kind of related: a few years ago I was wasting time on Google Maps, looking around sub-Saharan Africa and you know how Google labels places in the local language? (Or used to; now I see you have to un-tick "English" in the drop-down menu). I stumbled on some places in the middle of Africa that were labelled in Chinese characters. I thought it was an error, but further googling revealed that there is heavy Chinese investment in those places. I didn't find information to suggest that there was also heavy Chinese immigration so it sort of seemed like it was labeled for the benefit of those most likely to use the map, rather than the people living there, not unlike colonial maps of the last few centuries. I can't remember exactly where these places were and I haven't been able to find them since. I thought it was in Niger, but they don't seem to be there any more. Maybe Google changed it.

I for one am interested in seeing what happens when the Taliban take on the Chinese military. The goat-humping goofs will soon find out that the Chinese aren't as concerned about human rights and civilian casualties as the US and UK were.

Iran - weakening of a neighboring rival power (Taliban) and increased presence and influence in the Shi'a areas of Afghanistan

Broke even:

Pakistan - their friendly, weak, Pashtun-dominated client government (the Taliban) was ousted from power, but are well on their way to restoring their position, and with even tighter relations with the ISI. On the other hand, Pakistan's support and protection of the Taliban has fed the anti-Pakistani factions of the Taliban as well, increasing the problem of their domestic insurgency. Still, the current environment in Afghanistan is hostile to Indian investment and presence, and that's all Islamabad is really worried about anyway.

Losers:

United States - turned a highly-successful overthrow of the Taliban into a failed twelve-year occupation and counterinsurgency. Twelve years of money and lives spent to set up a deeply corrupt and dysfunctional central government which cannot survive without our presence.

al Qaida - forced to relocate from their historic homeland to Pakistan. Not a lengthy commute, but annoying. Still vulnerable to drone strikes and the odd visit from black helicopters.

The Afghan people - entering their thirty-fourth consecutive year of civil war. If any historians want to reflect on the devastation and deep cultural scars left on America by four years of civil war - and on Europe by six years of world war - and compare that to THIRTY-FOUR years, fought with everything from airstrikes to knives, I commend you to the exercise.

I for one am interested in seeing what happens when the Taliban take on the Chinese military. The goat-humping goofs will soon find out that the Chinese aren't as concerned about human rights and civilian casualties as the US and UK were.

I hate to say it but, we tried our damndest and they blew it, now they get China. That's bad for us though because if China gets their shiat from there, they wont need us anymore. Maybe we should sell Afghanistan to them...